Moderator's Note:Under most circumstance, the Brewers Association does not allow anonymous posts to the BA Forum. In the interest of keeping our members informed regarding a very serious safety situation, we have allowed the following communication to be posted on the BA Forum anonymously.

Our brewery recently experienced an explosive failure of a 2008 model plastic keg from Plastic Kegs of America. The failure occurred during the keg cleaning process. A room temperature keg was placed on the cleaning line. The keg almost immediately failed. Our employee had stepped away from the cleaning line and was standing approximately 10 to 12 feet away when explosion occurred. The employee sustained a cut leg from a fragmented piece of the keg. Another piece of the keg severed a nearby glycol line. The sound of explosion was described as a "grenade", and was heard by others throughout the brewery. All systems were operating normally with inbound pressure of compressed air regulated at or below 35 psi.

The Brewers Association has received reports of explosive failures involving kegs manufactured by Plastic Kegs of America. These kegs did not "fail safe" but rather created dangerous situations due to fragmentation of the kegs.

While the BA does not have first-hand knowledge of these incidents, or similar incidents in the past, we have been told of explosions involving brand new kegs, kegs being cleaned at pressure levels below the maximum recommended by their manufacturer or kegs that simply exploded while in storage, apparently due to continued fermentation of beer that had been inadvertently left in the keg

While we have not arrived at any final conclusions regarding plastic keg safety, the reports we have received have raised serious questions about the safety of these products. Accordingly, the BA has retained expert assistance to help us, with broad industry input, to create and promulgate appropriate keg performance and safety guidelines. Significant progress is being made on this project.

In addition, we continue to collect relevant information from brewers, manufacturers, and others, and we urge you to provide us with any further information you may have.

Please note, keg explosion incidents may be reported to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

It might be best to try to dispose of any of your PKA kegs before any accidents happen in your plant.

I have worked with a brewery that is using the ECO line of kegs from Schaefer.. These have polypropylene chimes with a stainless liner that will be in contact the beer. They are about half the weight of a standard all stainless keg. They are also a bit less expensive. Check them out: http://www.schaeferkegs.com/eco_kegs.php

Moderator's Note:Under most circumstance, the Brewers Association does not allow anonymous posts to the BA Forum. In the interest of keeping our members informed regarding a very serious safety situation, we have allowed the following communication to be posted on the BA Forum anonymously.

Our brewery recently experienced an explosive failure of a 2008 model plastic keg from Plastic Kegs of America. The failure occurred during the keg cleaning process. A room temperature keg was placed on the cleaning line. The keg almost immediately failed. Our employee had stepped away from the cleaning line and was standing approximately 10 to 12 feet away when explosion occurred. The employee sustained a cut leg from a fragmented piece of the keg. Another piece of the keg severed a nearby glycol line. The sound of explosion was described as a "grenade", and was heard by others throughout the brewery. All systems were operating normally with inbound pressure of compressed air regulated at or below 35 psi.

The Brewers Association has received reports of explosive failures involving kegs manufactured by Plastic Kegs of America. These kegs did not "fail safe" but rather created dangerous situations due to fragmentation of the kegs.

While the BA does not have first-hand knowledge of these incidents, or similar incidents in the past, we have been told of explosions involving brand new kegs, kegs being cleaned at pressure levels below the maximum recommended by their manufacturer or kegs that simply exploded while in storage, apparently due to continued fermentation of beer that had been inadvertently left in the keg

While we have not arrived at any final conclusions regarding plastic keg safety, the reports we have received have raised serious questions about the safety of these products. Accordingly, the BA has retained expert assistance to help us, with broad industry input, to create and promulgate appropriate keg performance and safety guidelines. Significant progress is being made on this project.

In addition, we continue to collect relevant information from brewers, manufacturers, and others, and we urge you to provide us with any further information you may have.

Please note, keg explosion incidents may be reported to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

It might be best to try to dispose of any of your PKA kegs before any accidents happen in your plant.

I have worked with a brewery that is using the ECO line of kegs from Schaefer.. These have polypropylene chimes with a stainless liner that will be in contact the beer. They are about half the weight of a standard all stainless keg. They are also a bit less expensive. Check them out: http://www.schaeferkegs.com/eco_kegs.php

Stout tanks does Kegs and will stamp them for a 1 time setup charge. I havent really looked into keg prices yet but they seem reasonable, and if you buy enough could probably setup a freight pickup to offset some of their high shipping costs.

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Granite Coast Brewing Company.Building a clone of The Electric Brewery to use as a pilot system for new recipes!

PKA is about 15% cheaper and American and Europien are about 15% more. There are also added costs like freight, or handeling fee, embossing...The reference pricing might be a great deal but I am not too much for Chinase stuff.

We recently picked up a bunch @ $114 each from gopherkegs and are happy with them. They aren't quite the weld quality of Schaefer (but they aren't quite the price either) and they typically have a better lead time and better pricing than Franke as well.